Portland Water Bureau costs: Our seven-year fight against federal water mandates
Published: Friday, March 25, 2011, 8:00 AM
By Guest Columnist The Oregonian
By Randy Leonard
The Oregonian's editorial board has provided a stark misrepresentation of substantial efforts by the Portland City Council to avoid the costs of an expensive, unfunded federal mandate.
The editorial ignores a seven-year fight by the council against "LT2," the federal mandate to treat drinking water for cryptosporidium and cover open reservoirs. The editorial suggests that the city is not doing enough to avoid the costs of compliance, a charge that couldn't be further from the truth.
In 2004, the council rejected a proposal to cover the city's open reservoirs and construct a treatment plant in anticipation of the rule, opting instead to lobby the federal government for an exemption in recognition of Portland's unique water source.
When the rule became final in 2006, the council, at my urging, filed a legal challenge that was rejected by the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2007.
The city then asked the federal government what alternatives existed to constructing a treatment plant. We were directed to pursue a variance, a process that could validate our claim that cryptosporidium is not a threat to our water.
Rigorous subsequent testing demonstrated that Portland's water is not threatened by cryptosporidium. And the city expects to receive a decision from the government by the end of the year that may excuse us from having to build a treatment plant.
Even if we are successful in receiving a variance on the treatment requirement, federal regulators have been adamant that there is no opportunity to avoid covering the open reservoirs.
Despite the government's position, I explored alternatives to covering the reservoirs, and I asked Sen. Jeff Merkley to pursue a federal waiver that could pass the Senate and House and be signed by the president to excuse Portland from covering its reservoirs and treating our water.
After considerable effort, Merkley discussed the concept with the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, who expressed strong opposition to any exemption, stating that such a bill would not even receive a hearing in committee, leaving no chance of a waiver for Portland.
The Portland Water Users Coalition and The Oregonian editorial board are suggesting that the city delay its federally approved 12-year compliance plan for these mandates. But the city has no legal basis to achieve a delay, as Congress specifically prohibited federal regulators from considering cost in their approval of compliance schedules. Other than openly defying the authority of the federal government at great expense to ratepayers in the form of fines, there is little more that I or the City Council can do to avoid the costs of covering our reservoirs.
The City Council's effort to avoid the substantial costs of these federally mandated projects over the past seven years has been aggressive and unrelenting, and with regard to the treatment portion of the rule, our efforts may yet be fruitful.
It's a shame that The Oregonian editorial board chooses to misrepresent the facts in their opinions on this important issue.
